Quick Facts
- NAME: Daniel Hale Williams
- OCCUPATION: Surgeon
- BIRTH DATE: January 18, 1856
- DEATH DATE: August 04, 1931
- EDUCATION: Chicago Medical College
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania
- PLACE OF DEATH: Idlewild, Michigan
- Nickname: "Dr. Dan"
- AKA: Daniel Hale Williams
- AKA: Daniel H. Williams
- AKA: Daniel Williams
- Full Name: Daniel Hale Williams III
Best Known For
Daniel Hale Williams was a physician who performed the first known open-heart surgery in the United States and who founded a hospital with an interracial staff.
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Play NowDaniel Hale Williams. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 10:17, May 21, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269.
Daniel Hale Williams. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269 [Accessed 21 May 2013].
"Daniel Hale Williams." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 21 2013, 10:17 http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269.
"Daniel Hale Williams," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269 [accessed May 21, 2013].
"Daniel Hale Williams," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269 (accessed May 21, 2013).
Daniel Hale Williams [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 21] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269.
Daniel Hale Williams, http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269 (last visited May 21, 2013).
Daniel Hale Williams. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/daniel-hale-williams-9532269. Accessed May 21, 2013.
And in 1895, he co-founded the National Medical Association, a professional organization for black medical practitioners, as an alternative to the American Medical Association, which didn’t allow African-American membership.
Contents
Marriage and Later Career
Williams left Freedmen’s Hospital in 1898. He married Alice Johnson, and the newlyweds moved to Chicago, where Williams returned to his work at Provident. Soon after the turn of the century, he worked at Cook County Hospital and later at St. Luke’s, a large medical institution with ample resources.
Beginning in 1899, Williams also made annual trips to Nashville, Tennessee, where he was a voluntary visiting clinical professor at Meharry Medical College for more than two decades. He became a charter member of the American College of Surgeons in 1913.
Death and Legacy
Daniel Hale Williams experienced a debilitating stroke in 1926 and died five years later, on August 4, 1931, in Idlewild, Michigan.
Today, Williams's work as a pioneering physician and advocate for an African-American presence in medicine continues to be honored by educational institutions worldwide.
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